Mark Dindal (CHICKEN LITTLE) will make his live-action directorial debut on SHERLOCK'S SECRETARY for Walden Media and Nash Ent., according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.
Crafted around the fact that Sherlock Holmes fictitious address 221b Baker St. receives real letters seeking Holmes sleuthing skills, the story will follow a resident of the address who decides to take on the real case from one of the letters.
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, from Buena Vista Home Ent., was the top winner in the 9th Annual DVD Awards with Leonard Maltin, leading all entries with three awards, including Blockbuster ($200+ million box office), Video Presentation and Authoring.
After two previous screenings, the final cut of THE TOLL will make its world premiere at Rhode Island Film Festival (RIFF) on Friday, Aug. 11, 2006. This completed version of the 3D mockumentary by Portsmouth New Hampshires, Hatchling Studios, has been rendered in High Definition while the film will still screened in standard definition.
The animation industry in Wales will receive a major boost following the announcement that three companies will share S4Cs £500,000 animation development and production fund.
The awards, given as part of a competitive tendering process, are to be split between Calon in Cardiff Bay, Griffilms, with offices in Caernarfon and Cardiff, and a partnership between Caernarfon-based Cwmni Da and Dinamo in Cardiff.
Calon will receive £250,000, while Griffilms receives £150,000. The Cwmni Da/Dinamo partnership will receive £100,000.
Luxologys modo earned Best OS X Graphics at the 11th Annual Apple Design Awards at Apples Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) held this week in San Francisco.
Nickelodeon Movies 3D-animated BARNYARD, made by Omation Animation Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures, features complex computer-generated animation that required unique and creative solutions from Sun Microsystems Inc.
Dan May has been hired as president of Blackmagic Design Inc. May joins Blackmagic as the company begins the re-location of its U.S. corporate headquarters to Milpitas, California. All operations currently handled by the Las Vegas, Nevada, office will be transferred to the Milpitas office. Blackmagic Design manufactures the highest quality video cards and converters for the post-production and television broadcast industries.
AJA Video, a leading manufacturer of professional video interface and conversion solutions, announced support for Apple's new Mac Pro line of Intel-based professional desktop computers.
Rockstar, the maker of best-selling videogame series GRANT THEFT AUTO, announced that it would launch its controversial new game, BULLY, in October.
Set in a U.S. boarding school, the game follows 15-year-old Jimmy Hopkins as he violently defends himself against school bullies ranging from nerds to jocks to authoritarian prefects.
"Finally BULLY can speak for itself. People can look at the game and see what it is and what it's not," company spokesman Rodney Walker said.
The inaugural Canadian Awards for the Electronic and Animated Arts (CAEAA 2006) has announced the nominees for its first awards, which will take place on Sept. 14, 2006, in Vancouver.
The first annual CAEAA will be hosted by William Shatner and take place at the River Rock Show Theatre in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver. The awards will honor Canadian achievements in three sectors of the electronic and animated arts industry: talent development (new media and animation art schools), animation, and videogame development.
The nominees are:
Rushes Soho Shorts Festival, which showcases the work of some of the U.K.s most talented young filmmakers, has announced its winner. The winners are
The Ascent Media Short Film AwardWinner CUBS Director: Tom Harper @ Free Range Films
Runners up: HIBERNATION Director: John Williams @ Sound Films THIS IS ME Director: Sam Arthur @ Academy
The Vue Animation AwardWinner RABBIT Director: Run Wrake @ Sclah Films
Runners up:
Comedy magic duo, Penn & Teller will host the 2006 Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards on Aug. 19, 2006, at The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, which is not part of the Emmy awards network broadcast on Aug. 27.
In addition, Spike Jones Jr., along with exec producers Michael A. Hoey and John Moffitt will return to produce the show, as a team, for the ninth year.
Viacoms MTV Networks (MTVN) has acquired Atom Ent. Inc., a portfolio of four leading online destinations for casual games, short films and video, for $200 million. The deal advances the company's multiplatform strategy of building an engaging universe of music, gaming, entertainment, news and interactivity for targeted audiences.
Warner Bros. Online is launching a website for the classic animation house Hanna-Barbera, relaunching its Scooby-Doo website and add a host of new content to its LooneyTunes.com site.
Beginning in mid-August, each site will roll out new, innovative, interactive content, including: broadband video channels featuring classic animated shorts; original downloadable audio content; customized applications; social networking; user-generated content; games and much more.
The Gnomon Workshop has released three DVDs by character modeler Laurent Pierlot of Blur Studios. In more than seven hours of lecture, Pierlot shares his myriad techniques for creating compelling life-like creatures. Using 3ds Max, BodyPaint, Photoshop and ZBrush, Pierlot discusses his workflow for modeling, detailing, texturing and rendering an alien creature based on a Carlos Huante design. While Max plays a key role in the development of the creature, virtually all the methods utilized apply to any leading 3D application such as Maya or XSI.
One of the more intriguing and controversial movies so far this year is V FOR VENDETTA, the adaptation of the graphic novel about terrorism by Alan Moore and David Lloyd from the Wachowski brothers, directed by protégé James McTeigue. Cinesite, Double Negative, Framestore CFC and Baseblack supplied the vfx under the overall supervision of Dan Glass. The two-disc special edition DVD has been released this month (Warner Home Video, $34.98).
Bonus features include:
Digital Dimension continues to help set the pace for seamlessly believable Hollywood visual effects as the lead visual effects studio on the new NASCAR-themed movie TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY. Following on such collaborations as ZATHURA: A SPACE ADVENTURE and BLADE: TRINITY, visual effects supervisor Joe Conmy entrusted the award-winning company with the movies three large NASCAR race sequences, as well as other select scenes, for a total of 267 shots.
Lucasfilm Ent. Co. Ltd. plans to create a single IT platform for all of its worldwide digital assets, reports TECHWEB TECHNOLOGY NEWS. The system will consolidate everything from California to the Singapore animation studio.
Acclaimed commercial and shorts director Neill Blomkamp will make his feature debut with HALO, to be produced by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh under their WingNut Films banner for Universal Pictures (domestically) and Twentieth Century Fox (internationally). Visual effects, miniatures and creature design and creation will all be handled by Weta Digital Ltd. and Weta Workshop Ltd.
Legendary television performer, satirist, radio, advertising innovator Stan Freberg will receive the prestigious 2006 Los Angeles Area Governors Award, which take place on Saturday, Aug. 12 at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre at 5:00 pm. The live-to-tape show will air as a one-hour special on KTLA on Aug. 26, from 9:00-10:00 pm in Los Angeles. The Governors Award honors a lifetime of broadcasting achievement.
Gradient Effects, a new visual effects studio with international expertise specializing in feature work, has set up shop in Venice, California, founded by vfx supervisor/producer Thomas Tannenberger. He will be joined by Olcun Tan as head of R&D, a former lead effects developer at DreamWorks.
Sony Pictures Ent. has surpassed the $1 billion mark in box office receipts for calendar year 2006, making it the fifth year in a row the studio has reached that milestone at the box office, a feat matched only by Warner Bros.
After receiving Best of Show honors, ONE RAT SHORT by Alex Weil of Charlex was the winner of the SIGGRAPH 2006 People's Choice Award. This short film follows a New York City rat from his own gritty world to the interior of a futuristic laboratory. Along his journey, the main character experiences love, danger and his fate.
For the second year, attendees were able to vote for their favorite selection from the Electronic and Animation Theaters within the Computer Animation Festival.
Award-winning visual effects house Zoic Studios has opened Zoic BC. The Canadian-based company is being launched to service Zoic Studios' ever-diversifying client base, and has proven to be a natural step in the company's evolution. Zoic BC has already completed the feature film PATHFINDER for Twentieth Century Fox and is working on two episodics: EUREKA for SCI-FI Channel and BLADE for Spike TV, both of which have proved to be successful for their respective networks.
VFXWORLD begins its new excerpt series this week with THE MAGIC OF HOUDINI by Will Cunningham from Thompson Course Technology.
